Re: Captain Phillips Movie Trailer

Originally Posted by DeckApe

I saw the movie last weekend. It's a sea story. No one in the movie has any character flaws, there is no moralizing, it's not a deposition or history lesson. No one is criticized or condemned (not the pirates, shipping company, master...). It's pure entertainment - like any good sea story -and did a good job at it.

It's like when your salty old boatswain starts off a story with, "When I was your age I went ashore in Singapore one night..." You know what follows will be entertaining and maybe based in reality but you don't expect it to be very accurate.

Danielle Albert had planned to be at home the day a Hollywood film crew climbed aboard the guided missile destroyer Truxtun to begin shooting "Captain Phillips."

But when the ship's executive officer learned that actors would be practicing dangerous stunts on the flight deck, he ordered Petty Officer 2nd Class Albert and the rest of the medical staff to come in on their days off - just in case.

The 24-year-old sailor and single mom didn't know that she would spend that afternoon acting alongside Tom Hanks in what would become the emotional climax of one of the year's biggest films.

Albert's only previous stage experience came in fifth grade, when she played the caterpillar in Easton Elementary School's rendition of "Alice in Wonderland" back home in Washington state. Her main job, she recalled, was to blow bubbles.

So when director Paul Greengrass walked into the ship's sick bay and asked her to ad-lib a scene with a two-time Academy Award-winning actor, Albert grew light-headed.

"What do you mean?" she said, wishing she had bothered to do some reading on the film before reporting to work that day. She was totally unaware of the dramatic 2009 rescue of cargo ship captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates that became the basis for the film.

Before Albert could fully grasp the director's request, hair and makeup artists were tending to her appearance. The film crew set up cameras, lights and sound equipment in the tiny medical room. Then a familiar face appeared in the doorway.

"Oh, my God, it's Tom Hanks!" Albert blurted out, then giggled.

Hanks laughed and shook her hand.

Greengrass had decided that morning to rework a key scene at the end of the film after a Navy commander told him it wasn't realistic. The crew of the guided missile destroyer Bainbridge wouldn't have taken the rescued Phillips to the captain's stateroom to get cleaned up; they would have first taken him to the medical bay.

Albert was nervous as the film crew moved into position. "I could feel my face turning really red," she said. "I was breaking out in hives and giggling uncontrollably."

"Hi, Captain Phillips," she said awkwardly as Hanks hobbled into the room, then led him to sit on the operating table. Albert fidgeted with a bandage and started wrapping it around his hand; Hanks acted like a man in shock.

Albert also appeared to be in shock. She said nothing as Hanks tried to engage her and again wondered where to place her hands. As film rolled, seconds felt like hours. She started to tear up.

"Hey, Doc," Hanks said, breaking character to end the take. "Do you need medical attention? Do you need to sit down?"

Albert nodded and sat with the actor.

"Look, it's OK," she recalls Hanks saying. "We all go through moments like this at one time or another in our acting careers. You're fine. I just want you to react to how I'm acting. You do this every day. Just react."

Albert nodded, took a few moments to regroup, then asked to start over.

This time, when Hanks stepped into her sick bay, the hospital corpsman snapped into the role. Again Hanks quivered and repeated himself incoherently, delivering a performance that convinced Albert she was dealing with an actual trauma patient.

"I need you to breathe," she said, repeating words she had said numerous times before as an emergency room worker. She placed her hand on his trembling face and looked into the actor's eyes.

"It will be OK."

Greengrass walked into the room at the end of the take with tears in his eyes. After two more takes, they were done with the scene, and the director walked away with an idea.

"I've just changed how we're going to film this movie," he told Cmdr. Andrew Biehn, then the Truxtun's executive officer. "I want to integrate our actors into your crew and make it as realistic as possible."

As a result, several Truxtun sailors wound up with speaking roles in the film, including Biehn, who felt at ease playing the Bainbridge's executive officer.

"I couldn't be more proud of my sailors," said Biehn, now the ship's commanding officer. "We ask our sailors every day to deal with the unpredictable. Being in a movie with Tom Hanks is pretty darn unpredictable."

As "Captain Phillips" opens to a national audience today, critics are praising the film, highlighting the poignant scene in the medical bay and predicting that the performance will earn Hanks another Oscar nomination for best actor.

But when Sony executives called Greengrass after laying eyes on the raw footage from the scene, they weren't asking about Hanks.

Re: Captain Phillips Movie Trailer

The big movie this weekend is the well-reviewed Captain Phillips, a high-seas piracy drama based on a 2009 hijacking in which Tom Hanks plays the eponymous Richard Phillips. In real life, some of Phillips’s former crew members are complaining about how Hollywood told their story. The unhappy seamen allege that the filmmakers, in their eagerness to portray Phillips as a classic hero, fudged key facts. And since this is America, the dissident crew members are lodging their complaints via lawsuits against the owners of the hijacked freighter.

The legal actions in Alabama and Texas seek unspecified monetary damages. The suits do not name Phillips or formally accuse him of wrongdoing. A trial is scheduled to begin in Mobile, Ala., in December.

“I want moviegoers to know that the true heroes are the Navy marksmen and Navy personnel who bailed out the shipping company and Captain Phillips,” Brian Beckcom, the Houston attorney representing nine of Phillips’s former subordinates in their suits against Maersk Line and Waterman Steamship Corp., said at a press conference on Thursday. He described his clients as “the brave crew members who fought back against the pirates.” The plaintiffs claim a variety of physical and emotional injuries.

The cargo ship MV Maersk Alabama was hijacked by Somali pirates in April 2009 as it sailed along the coast of Africa. Phillips was taken hostage on a small lifeboat and eventually rescued by Navy SEALs. “While this event certainly makes for an exciting movie, could it have been avoided altogether?” That’s the question posed on Beckcom’s law firm website. His answer: “The pirate hijacking would never have taken place if not for the negligence of the captain, shipping company, and ship operator.”

Specifically, the suits allege that Phillips had been clearly warned to steer theAlabama at least 600 miles off the coast of Somalia, because of the danger of piracy. Instead, in an effort to save time and money, he allegedly ordered the ship to within about 250 miles of the coast. The corporate defendants deny any liability.

Phillips said to CNN’s Drew Griffin in 2010 and in a court deposition last year that he ignored the numerous warnings that urged him to go farther out to sea. … When asked last year why he decided not to take the boat farther offshore, Phillips testified, “I don’t believe 600 miles would make you safe. I didn’t believe 1,200 miles would make you safe. As I told the crew, it would be a matter of when, not if. … We were always in this area.”

After his rescue by U.S. Navy SEAL commandos, Phillips was lauded as a hero and wrote a book about his ordeal, “A Captain’s Duty.” The publisher promoted him as a sea captain who risked his life by offering himself as a hostage “in exchange for the safety of the crew,” something Phillips later acknowledged was a falsity spread by erroneous media reports.

Paul Greengrass, the director of Captain Phillips, doesn’t claim that his movie is literally accurate. “Movies are not journalism,” he told the Associated Press. “Movies are not history.” Perhaps not. But an awful lot of moviegoers will assume they’re getting an honest account from a film that advertises itself as being “based on a true story.” Pass the popcorn.

Anyone seen Richie out and about lately? Where's he working now? Is he still shipping with Maersk or living off of royalty checks?

"And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by..."
As I was a walkin' down London Road I come to Paddy West's house. He gave me a feed of "American hash" and he called it "Liverpool Scouse". He said, "There's a ship who's wantin' hands, and on 'er ye'll quickly sign! The mate is a bastard, the bos'un's worse but she will suit ye' fine!